Approximately one hour after being placed in an incubator, a hatchling dragon will hatch from the egg. The hatchling is about half the size of a baby dragon. A Hatchling Dragon advances 1% growth for every 3 hunger changes, which is an average of 10.1% per growth percent. As such, it takes roughly 6 to 8 hours to grow into a baby dragon, depending on whether you feed it or not. Although not always a good idea, a hatchling dragon will not flee as soon as it reaches 100% hunger. Baby dragons will never grow into adult dragons.

It is currently impossible to understand hatchling or baby dragons, even with a +10 Summoning boost from a Clan Citadel battlefield.

Players may obtain multiple dragon eggs as drops. However, in order to hatch and raise more than one baby dragon, any existing baby dragons must be stored in the Menagerie of a player-owned house. Prior to the release of Menageries, players could only own one baby dragon at a time.

Baby dragons are the only pets that cannot be understood under any circumstances. While the chameleon and pet monkey both require 90 or higher Summoning, players can speak to these pets by boosting Summoning to 100 or by using a monkeyspeak amulet or equivalent, respectively. TzRek-Jad may be spoken to normally, without need for any boosts. Baby dragons were released before it was possible to boost Summoning in any form except via the Summoning cape, so there is no dialogue scripted for them.